Azkhaban Allies
by fen-san
Summary: Harry has defeated Voldemort with the help of Snape, but the Ministry has imprisoned them for their unconventional tactics. Can they survive prison and one another?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or its setting, I'm just having fun with Rowling's little world.

Azkhaban Allies

Oddly enough it started with the lack of an argument. After a few days of shock in which neither of them had the energy to snipe at one another Harry started to come around enough to realise that despite being stuck in a room barely two metres long and wide he didn't feel like throttling Snape.

'It's the dementors, Potter. Their presence, even indirect as it is at the moment makes it impossible for you to feel joy or anger. They feed on happiness and suppress rage as it is a tool that helps their victims resist them.'

'Oh, so is that why I feel so empty?'

'Yes. There are two ways that I know of to escape the dementors - one is insanity, the other is by adopting the unemotional mental state occlumenacy affords for the majority of the time.'

Here we go again, Harry thought distantly as the older man adopted a didactic tone. Once a teacher, always a teacher. He settled down on the dank straw-stuffed palette that was their only piece of furniture, unless you counted the drafty hole in the floor that constituted their lavatory. Harry didn't count it, instead he burrowed into Snape's side for warmth. The cold and lack of room had already broken down any concept of personal space either had. A thought occurred to Harry.

'Can you do wandless magic?'

'I can do a little.' Snape admitted, brows furrowing as his sluggish thoughts followed Harry's reasoning. 'Well, we have nothing better to do, I suppose. You should also practice occlumenacy - I find it useful against the dementors.'

In the darkness came forth light, a flickering, rather wispy globe of light that floated above Harry's hand. It vanished as Harry made a surprised noise in the back of his throat. Where five months previously Harry would have sworn and tried again, the imprisoned youth merely exhaled and stretched, not reacting when a light appeared silently courtesy of Severus.

'That's enough for one session, boy. Time to rest.' His cellmate's voice was coarsened by his ill health and lack of use.

Harry nodded, the corner of his mouth stretching into a half-hearted smile. He almost wished that Snape would spare a kind word for him after his first fully successful non-verbal, wandless lumos, but it was not in the man's nature. Even when Harry mastered accio and showed off by walking from one side of the room to the other summoning their empty water jug back and forth he had only spared a stern, but slightly approving nod. Within his occlumenacy shields Harry had felt the tiniest spark of warmth at even that small acknowledgement.

Flickers of warmth and a distant memory of real feelings were as much emotion other than despair that Harry could muster in his occluded mind and Snape didn't seem to be capable of even that. The man had shut down almost entirely on the emotional side and shielded Harry from the worst of the dementors when their monstrous gaolers came to harass and taunt them, trying to pry a meal of emotion from them. His protection of Harry seemed habitual, almost absent-minded now there was no discernable emotion behind it. It made Harry think that Snape had been wise to insist on them concentrating on mind-magic first.

Other than sleeping, relieving themselves and pacing the walls of their cell, the only thing left to them to do had been to train. Snape, relieved of the anger which had tainted his previous teaching of Harry, had decided that the easiest way to get Harry to understand how to occlude would be to initiate a link between their minds and show Harry his own system, guiding the younger man through developing his own mental shields.

~Dementor coming~

~I know~

Blackness was all Harry could see, his forehead pressed against Severus' and his bony arms wrapped around the other's emaciated waist. They pressed together, sharing warmth and mental strength until the depressing phantom passed them by. Doing so had long since stopped feeling weird to Harry, even if cosying up with the teacher he'd hated at school didn't exactly feel natural.

~So show me these muggle exercises again, boy.~ Severus' mental voice remained the velvety baritone his physical voice used to be, before their life of privation and the occasional casual abuse of the non-dementor prison guards.

~We'll need to be careful not to overdo this. Anyway, this is a push-up, Severus. Note that my hands are directly under my shoulders and my body is a straight line.~

~It is harder than it looks.~

~Is it my turn to be the taskmaster then, Severus?~ A rough chuckle broke the silence within the cell. It wasn't returned.

~Cheeky boy.~

~The next step is to stop saying the incantations in your head and merely think what you want to happen. Know the feel of the magic as you perform the spell and concentrate on the result you want.~

Severus' tantallegra bounced off a silent protego and he jerked about the cell for several moments before he managed to uncurse himself. Harry seemed grimly satisfied with the result, even though both of them were swaying on their feet after the short practice.

~Sit down Severus, you look a bit peaky.~

Severus felt the odd sensation of a sloppily executed scourgify and the supposedly white sections of his black and white striped prison robe brightened to a lighter grey than they had been. Harry settled in next to him, sharing their scant body heat as the winter wind howled into their cell.

~How long has it been now?~

~Nearly a year and a half. Pass the jug.~

A quick aguamenti and the container was half full. They passed it between them silently, but for the occasional cough or sniffle from one or the other.

~I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 's'.~

~I thought you'd agreed that we were trying to stay sane, boy.~

Harry laughed and laughed and laughed, tears poured down his face as he carried on laughing desperately until it turned into heartbroken sobs. Skinny arms wrapped around him, long-fingered hands pressing against protruding ribs and vertebrae. He clung desperately to Snape, as tears gradually soaked the older man's robe shoulder, crisping into ice as the wind sobbed its own counterpart to Harry's desperation.

~If you do this transfiguration wrong, you'll be stuck with a kettle for underpants until you work out how to fix it, Ha-Potter.~

~And if I don't even try it there's no chance of us managing to heat some water, Severus.~

They both yearned for warmth and finally their wandless magic was stable enough to progress from charms and hexes to the more complicated art of transfiguration.

~Well remember to give it a good scourgify before you fill it with water.~

Harry gave a gentle snort, almost feeling fondness and amusement. The warmth of it vanished quickly enough, but the memory of it was oddly positive, leaving his mental walls feeling strengthened for it. He turned his concentration to the only available raw material for transfiguration they could afford to risk as Severus wandered over to the tiny barred window to give him the illusion of privacy.

Severus turned back at the 'ah' of triumph Harry uttered. ~Put this in with the water as you heat it.~

~I don't recognise that lichen from herbology.~

~It only grows in the arctic circle. It has vitamins in it.~

~It'll taste awful then. Nothing new there.~

~It is unfortunate we can't do any healing spells.~

~Yes, I was just thinking it was a shame.~ Harry replied bitterly as another bout of coughing overcame him. His muscles relaxed fractionally as the chill in the air eased a little. They weren't very good at wandless warming charms yet and Severus had put his foot down, saying they shouldn't waste their energy on something that didn't last longer than an hour or two at the absolute longest. Harry would have snorted had he been capable. Snape had always been more keen on making rules than obeying them.

Severus sat on the edge of the pallet next to Harry as the younger man coughed and absentmindedly rubbed the lad's back as he ransacked his memory for any charms he had ever learnt that might help the situation. He shoved potions to the back of his mind, while thinking of their intricacies and contemplating potential new formulations usually helped keep his mind clear of emotions, at that point their healing properties only seemed to taunt him.

'Succurere.' The latin infinitive growled through his broken teeth in a desperate summoning of energy shaped by half-remembered language studies to create a new spell. Harry went limp and his eyelids fluttered shut. Severus' heart stuttered in his chest in sudden fear before the blankness of his occlumenacy shields returned him to a trancelike state and enabled him to notice that the youngster's breathing had settled into a healthier pattern, interrupted with only occasional coughs. At that Severus' vision greyed out and he fell onto the pallet, curling close to Potter to keep warm.

'Fuck!'

~Fuck indeed, Potter. Now stop flapping about like a deranged pygmy puff and do something!~

'Scourgify.' Harry paused and checked Severus' skull, repeating the spell for good measure before he filled their water jug and gave it to the other to rinse his mouth out. Severus spat a mixture that was more blood than water down their toilet hole then rinsed again while Harry placed his hands on Severus' injured head and poured himself into performing the refined succurere they'd developed.

After they'd done what they could to heal the worst of Severus wounds they flopped onto the pallet. ~What about you Harry? Rushing in like that... what have I told you about your idiot heroics?~

~You told me not to do it. Just like the last time and the time before.~ Harry admitted, shivering as the wind gusted in again. ~Hermione used to call it my 'saving people thing'.~

There was silence as Harry slammed his mental barriers down and blinked rapidly. Snape's face blanked out completely, he agreed with the Granger girl's assessment of his cellmate's psyche, but knew that there was no point in pursuing the matter. For one thing their continued survival depended on both of their mental states.

~Are you still alive?~

~Do I have to be?~

~Yes.~

~Then I suppose I must be.~

~I miss it getting dark at night. All this light all the time makes me feel like time's stopped. I feel like I'm going barmy.~

~Pull yourself together Potter. You know time is passing. We get fed at the same times twice a day. Now get on with practising your transfiguration.~

~It's a pity we don't know about how to become an animagus. Imagine how much progress we'd make with all this time to practise.~ Harry had learnt to try and curb the worst of his anger and tendency to brood while he and Severus were in each other's minds. Severus might have the emotional range of a rock these days, but he still had precious little patience for anything Harry did that he thought was self-indulgent and useless.

~Wait a second, do you hear that too?~

Severus cocked his head, straining to hear what Harry seemed to have caught. Gradually the noise became loud enough for him to pick up as well. ~Footsteps, three or four wizards are heading towards us.~

Harry nodded, trusting Severus' analysis. They stood together, the spells they'd painstakingly re-learnt wandlessly and those they'd created lurking at the forefront of their minds, magic warming them as it rose within them. If there was a chance to escape they had to take it now.

Hermione gasped when the two gaolers escorting her and Percy swing the door open to reveal Harry and Professor Snape. Harry had grown a bit from the fifteen-year-old she had known, but next to Professor Snape or even her, he was still short and they were both terribly emaciated. To look at their cadaverous faces and the skeletal wrists and hands poking out of the sleeves of their prison robes reminded Hermione of the pictures of POWs from the Japanese camps of WW2.

Percy was equally shocked, but nonetheless managed to make a tentative step toward his old spymaster. 'Harry, Severus the Ministry trial has finally found you innocent of the crime of using Dark Magic in the murder of another wizard and instead convicted you of the lesser offence of using ancient magic in self-defence, causing the death of another.' A grim smile twitched at the edge of his humourless mouth. 'Coincidentally they decided that your sentence was to be the two years and eight months' imprisonment that you have already served.'

The two prisoners' eyes widened and Harry audibly gasped before they turned to one another and stared into each other's eyes disbelievingly. Percy suspected some sort of use of legilimenacy between them, but couldn't believe that two such disparate men could achieve the bond necessary to talk mentally with such ease.

They turned back to Percy and Hermione as one unit, Snape's empty black eyes seeking Percy's as Harry darkened green eyes searched Hermione's face. Percy inhaled in slight surprise at Snape's surprisingly mild-mannered entry of his mind, but he recovered and brought to the front of his mind the collection of memories he supposed Snape would be looking for. It was strange being plunged into the final battle again, reliving watching Harry and his superior being dragged off to Azkhaban, watching the mockery of a trial again, starting his quiet attempts at research, being recruited by Granger and joining her, Lupin and Ron in their quest to get the two men freed.

'It's real, Snape.' Percy told him quietly. 'It's over.'

Fin.

A/N - I just like the idea of Percy being a spy for the Order planted in the Ministry and Snape being the more experienced spy taking him grudgingly under his wing


End file.
